There is a particular kind of energy in a room where people feel free to be honest. Over two days in Vilnius, that is the room the FLIP+ community built together.
The 9th FLIP+ Annual Event brought together 110 participants from 15 countries: national assessment institutions, researchers, ministry colleagues, partner organisations, and many discovering FLIP+ for the first time. Hosted by the National Agency for Education of Lithuania, and anchored at the Courtyard by Marriott in Vilnius, the event was two days of sharing, questioning, and building.
What made this event different
Most professional gatherings share successes. FLIP+ events share something rarer: the full picture. Over these two days, colleagues spoke openly about what is working in their national systems, and just as openly about what is not. They named their challenges, asked each other for help, and trusted the room to answer honestly. That willingness to share both success and difficulty, without needing to perform, is the culture FLIP+ has built over nine years. It is why people come back.
From national systems to shared tools
Day 1 opened with member institutions presenting their national assessment systems, from Lithuania, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. Real practice, real constraints, real lessons.
The afternoon turned to the FLIP+ Library. The community saw Release 2 of the platform brought to life, followed by demonstrations from each of the six Working Groups, a live AI-assisted translation pipeline, and a PDF-to-QTI converter built and shared across the community through the new FLIP+ Educational Hub. The demos landed. Participants immediately began imagining how these tools could serve their own institutions.
It was during this session that Roberto Ricci, President of INVALSI, reflected on what he was watching. Seeing a tool built by the Working Groups, shared freely with the community, he said simply: "This is exactly why FLIP+ was started."
Watching each Working Group take the floor and present what they had built together, with clarity, confidence, and real substance, was exactly the impact the community set out to create. The feedback was warm and genuine.
Two days of questions
Day 2 carried the community wider. Assessment without borders: open-source platforms and multilingual collaboration. Designing for every learner: neurodiversity, accessibility, and inclusion. AI in assessment: from research to responsible practice, and the human judgement that must remain at its centre. Across both days, six questions threaded the programme, giving the community not just a set of presentations, but a shared line of thinking to carry forward.
The community between the sessions
And then there were the moments that no agenda can plan. The conversations over lunch that turned into collaborations. The spontaneous dancing at the Mo Museum. The connections made between people who had never met, and who left as colleagues. For all the substance on stage, FLIP+ has always lived just as much in the corridors, and the Lithuanian host team created the conditions for all of it, with an organisation and warmth that everyone felt.
Looking ahead
The event closed with a look to the future and the announcement that the 10th FLIP+ Annual Event will be hosted in Rabat, Morocco, in June 2027. The excitement was immediate. People were already saying they would be there.
What we take from Vilnius is something simple. FLIP+ is the community where colleagues share what is working, name what is not, ask each other for help, and trust each other to answer honestly. That is rare. That is what we built. That is what continues.
Join us
The conversations started in Vilnius continue all year.
- Explore the FLIP+ Library and see what the community is building together.
- Join a Working Group and contribute your expertise.
- Follow us on LinkedIn for updates, voices from the community, and upcoming activities.
- Save the dates: the 10th FLIP+ Annual Event, scheduled for 16–18 June 2027, Rabat, Morocco (dates to be confirmed).
We look forward to welcoming you.
